Wind slab instabilities on Castle Peak

We skied the NW trees on Castle Peak today and observed several instances of windslab instabilities. We chose to ski the NW trees to avoid the wind slab and persistent slab problems. After Castle Pass on the ascent up to the summit, the group setting the track group before us had traversed a slide path we did not feel comfortable crossing. Instead, we hiked above and crossed the slide path in an area where it was much narrower with less overhead hazard. While crossing the slope we heard a large whumpf underfoot. See photo 1 Red arrow was the group prior to us the green arrow is our tracks and where the whumpf was triggered.

Near the summit we observed lots of wind textured snow and shooting cracks up to 2-3 feet long on steep wind loaded convexities.

We were able to safely kick at a cornice overhanging the back bowl on castle and dropped a large refrigerator-sized cornice onto the slope below. This started a small avalanche approximately 30 feet wide and 35 feet long. Of note, this was a rather large trigger and the slab broke in a more crumbly than elastic manner. Before kicking at the slope we did make sure that no parties were below and within the range of a potential slide.

We then skied down the NW trees and dug a pit in a sheltered NW facing micro aspect on a West slope at 8,000 feet. We targeted the problematic facet layer with an extended column test. We observed an ECTN27 on the new old snow interface. On further investigation of the pit, we noticed the faceted crust layer was not particularly planar through the column and may have been disturbed prior to the most recent storm.